Ernest Hogan's Blog, page 10

CHICANONAUTICA VISITS VARIOUS INTERSECTING BORDERLANDS

Chicanonautica crosses bordersof various kinds, at La Bloga.

There’s cheap motels:

Mexican restaurants in Oregon:

Evergreens turn yellow:

And a specter is hauntingSasquatchlandia:

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ZIGZAGGING INTO SASQUATCHLANDIA

As we were leaving the motel in Crescent City, a woman gotour attention with a two-armed wave. Was there something wrong? Without sayinga word, she pointed. There were elk grazing on the trees and bushes at the edgeof the parking lot.

We were heading out of California, into Oregon, andSasquatchlandia. A different state.

A different region. Different flavors of weird.

Across the border in Brooking, gas was less than $5 a gallon, andthere were a helluvalota cannabis places.

We grabbed doughnuts at the Honeybee Bakery. That is, after makingour way through the building’s mural-festooned maze.

Driving through the marine-layer fog, we found a coffeestand and it had decaf!

Then we headed through the mountains on our way to Bandon pastPrehistoric Gardens.

Suddenly, the roadside was crowded with a lot of fantastic woodsculptures.

We stopped and took a lot of pictures.

There was a wide-open barn turned workshop that looked abandoned—

it made Mike sad to see all good woodworking equipment rusting andcovered with muddy dust.

In back were some shipping containers converted into what lookedlike a later-day hippie commune—

some of them looked abandoned, others seemed occupied, butcrumbling.

A UPS truck pulled up. The driver wandered around, quicklyrealizing we were tourists. A guy who looked both hippie and nerdish staggeredout of one of the shipping containers. When the driver asked about the occupantof the barn/workshop, the answer was: “Oh, he’s here. Sometimes he answers. Sometimeshe doesn’t.”

Once again we stopped at the place that sold Bigfoot Nuts.

We were in and out of fog all day.

In Coos Bay, I found a book on the mound builders, and we hadlunch in a well-muraled Mexican restaurant called Pueblo Nuevo.

Back on the highway, I saw a truck flying a huge flag. I couldmake out the word FUCK, but it was flapping so hard I couldn’t read if it wasmeant to insult Trump, Biden or some other poor sucker.

Then, in a seaside antique mall guarded by a statue ofGodzilla, one of the vendors has a bedsheet-sized JOE BIDEN SUCKS sign. Out ofhis radio, I heard: “I’m beginning to think we don’t deserve Trump.”

Later, back on the road, the news of the trials in Washington D.C.made us smile.

In the forest-y area near Florence, we came across what lookedlike a wild Halloween party in bright colors and broad daylight.

Only no one was moving.

They were all frozen in place, like statues.

That was because they were statues of a sort, scarecrow-likefigured in masks and costumes, murderous clowns, witches, werewolves, lots ofskull faces, and pop culture references.

No doubt someone’s continuing art project, with more figures beingadded every year.

One fine day, there will be so many of them that they will seem tohave taken over . . .

Further north, gas was $3.89 a gallon. It just kept gettingcheaper.

In a motel in Lincoln City, I had a vision: Oz overrun by suburbsand corporate land developments. The funky and fantastic stuff is relegated tojunk yards, thrift stores and museums where tourists shop. Wizards and witchesare unemployed and homeless. Winged monkeys beg and steal in the streets.

Lincoln City was dripping wet when we left. Even the air. Astrange, cold humidity.

The spider webs on folksy western-themed wooden statues werecovered in dew beads, like a peculiar Christmas decoration. Did the spiders mindthe cold? Do they shiver?

The heavy mist covered the farmland.

In Hebo, the crossroads of the Nestucca valley, Mike bought uscoffee at the Yellow Dog Espresso.

In Garibaldi, we saw the first Trump sign of the trip. It wassmall, low key and managed to be tasteful, as was the house it was mountedon.

Then the mist, that had become a heavy fog, became a lightdrizzle.

In Rockaway Beach we came across more Halloween yard decor thatincluded a vehicle.

In Seaside there was a big sign advertising TSUNAMI MARIJUANA.

There were still a lot of espresso places along the 101, though mostof the yoga places we saw last time we passed through didn’t survive thepandemic.

In Westport along the Columbia River, there was a weird stickertableau. Orwellian signage and a mutation of Charlie Brown. Dystopian small towndada. Couldn’t tell if it was a statement or just spontaneous juxtaposition.

Then we crossed the bridge into Washington.

It was an urban sprawl along the I-5 with signs for all theusual franchises peeking through tall trees. Generic corporate America, exceptfor a hand painted sign with Uncle Sam asking: “How many Americans will weleave behind in Ukraine?”

Autumn leaves were changing color.

I kept seeing signs with the names of tribes I had never heardof. 

The traffic got heavy in Seattle. The graffiti showed skill, thecolors were more conservative. More media than message. Not very arty. Mostlytags.

Then in Conway we found a wacko junk art place, bristling withcharacter, creativity, and craziness. That spirit lives here too.

And the gas station across the street played jazz and sold icecream.

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CHICANONAUTICA FINDS THE INFO WILDERNESS AND THE MASKED MARVEL

Chicanonautica visitsan info wilderness and finds out about a masked marvel at La Bloga.

The new wilderness is wherethere’s no cell coverage:

It’s where woodcutters haveancient wisdom:

And there are strange places:

And a masked marvel:

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HOBBITON IN FAR NORTHERN AZTLÁN

Like Mike says, the further north in California, closer to Oregon, the far edge of Aztlán, the more it becomes like Hobbiton. I must admit that the cooler weather, mossy, misty forests, and the relaxed, post-countercultural rural communities have a Middle Earth feeling. No hobbits, but images of Sasquatch are everywhere.

It definitely felt that way in Petaluma, though in places it was more like an abandoned Oz than one of the high-rent sectors of Middle Earth. There were murals,

a memorial to an arm-wrestling journalist,

and some funky stores

—including a bookstore where I found an old book that I was looking for, that often happens in these trips (really, it’s as if someone was putting them there for me to find), and the Thrifty Hippie,

where I saw the subtle flyer advocating the legalization of magic mushrooms.

Could that be the next step after cannabis culture in California? How long before classy shops will offer upscale, pricey, FDA-sanctioned psychedelic products that can do everything from warding off bad vibes to putting you in a kaleidoscopic intergalactic freefall for the weekend? And, of course, there will be unforeseen side effects . . .

Then there was the fabulous, abandoned Petaluma fairgrounds. Rusting fantastic sculptures towered over a wall with a weather-beaten sign calling for a movement to save the wonders while a winged lion and flying saucers rusted in the sun.

We arrived in Santa Rosa after their thrift stores had closed, butwe did find a good Chinese restaurant. Then it was wine country, and into theredwoods, under the marine layer. The fog was thick. We finally ended up in aSuper 8 in Fort Bragg.

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CHICANONAUTICA GOES UP THE PACIFIC COAST OF CALI

It further up the Cali coastin Chicanonautica, over at La Bloga.

Things are changing:

We saw a lighthouse:

Mayan cuisine is taking root:

And it’s earthquake country:

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UNCHEAP THRILLS IN NORCAL

I passed on the free raisin snails at the motel, we went to a bagel shop in Carmel, where Clint Eastwood was once the mayor.

I thought I heard an elderly woman say, “A friend of mine got a new arm.”

(Later, Emily told me she heard it too.)

This was at the edge of an upscale shopping center. What kind of sci-fi lives did the people have around here? I’ve said that the SoCal I grew up in was like a collaboration between Philip K. Dick and the Firesign Theater spiced with some Cheech and Chong, the same seems to go for contemporary NorCal. How long before all of California starts to look like a backdrop for my stories?

The shopping center seemed to have roots that go back to the pre-mall era, kept up by a robust local economy. 

There were some thrift stores and a bookstore that Mike liked.

There were also signs announcing a prohibition on dogs relieving themselves on the premises.

This one place had a big sign: SYNCHRONICITY HOLISTIC. We wondered whatthehell kinda business that were in, then there was this slick, subtle, wordless sign: a marijuana leaf. Or should I say cannabis?

It was closed, but when I put my face close to the tinted windows, it looked like a bank: plush ultramodern furniture, plants that may have been artificial, and velvet ropes in front of a high counter where you could purchase high-price products that would make you feel synchronic and holistic.

It was right out of the New Wave spec fic I read in my youth. I imagine a time travel situation where I could show this to spaced-out hippies from 1969. Would they be delighted or horrified?

A short stroll away was another place: BIG SUR, CANNA + BOTANICALS.

Another place offered LASER AESTHETICS.

Who knows, the place that sells new arms was probably not far away . . .

Next it was historic Cannery Row, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Parking and getting in was a cyberKafka labyrinth. The bay area is a dense tourist area, and the parking meters were hard to figure out. You can’t just walk up and buy the expensive tickets to the aquarium and get in. Employees with hand-held gadgets told us we could only do it online, they helped, but . . .

The aquarium was a blast once we got in. Not just a bunch of fish tanks, but recreated ocean environments, deep sea, kelp forests, tide pools . . . alien environments with strange lifeforms, and they’re right here on this planet. In fact, most of this planet is ocean. We surface dwellers are a minority.

It was fun, but then, like the octopus clinging to the glass, gripping a piece of PVC pipe, not moving, I felt uneasy. Most of the jellyfish were swimming upside-down–was this normal, or a reaction to the unnatural situation? How long before all natural environments are locked up in artificial recreations like this? The creeping Disneylandization of the planet. Pay the high price for tickets, stand in line, be part of the crowd, a cell in the economic organism, consume what’s left of the ecosystem . . .

Or maybe we are already a worldwide zoo/aquarium, and alien tourists whizz by delighting in our crime, wars, and self-destruction . . .

Later, in a thrift shop in Pacific Grove, I a copy of André Breton’s Manifestoes of Surrealism.

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CHICANONAUTICA CRUISES THE SAN ANDREAS FAULT AND ZAPOTECAN CALIFORNIA

It’s earthquake ground zeroand a new colony in Cali in Chicanonautica, over at La Bloga.

Will California be a new Atlantis?

Or is it a chunk of Lemuria crashedinto North America?

There’s a Zapotec influence:

And new kinds of Mexican restaurants:

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GIVE THE GIFT OF GONZO

Suddenly, I’m officially gonzo!As in Guerrilla Mural of a Siren’s Song: 15 Gonzo Science Fiction Stories—notmy idea, but it the glass slipper fits . . . And it packaged as part of aseries:

The footnote refers to a quotefrom the entry on me in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction:

Thereis a pleasing gonzo energy to Hogan's work, though not to date any sense of anyoutbreak into work of radical originality: but he continues to seem capable ofstorming into general view.

The only time it’s been saidthat I’m not radical enough. As for storming into general view, I’ve beenbeating myself bloody at it for decades. Maybe the time has finally come . . .

Gonzo is a good word todescribe what I do. I’ve been doing stuff like this before I heard of Hunter S.Thompson. I also was surreal before I knew about Salvador Dalí.

I am doomed to forever be explainingmyself. People need to label you.

But remember the words ofFrank Zappa:

Whatwill you do when the label comes off
And the plastic's all melted
And the chrome is too soft?

So, give the gift of gonzothis Holidaze, and check out my other novels. A reviewer did say Cortez on Jupiter was “liketaking a stroll through the mind of a mad Mexican Hunter S. Thompson.”  And the hero/narrator of my underground cultclassic High Aztech is a kind of gonzo journalist.

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VAMPIRE RUN TO VEGAS AND THE JAMES DEAN GAS STATION

The day after the eclipse, we left Phoenix as the sun was setting,heading for Las Vegas. It was dark before we hit the strip of Highway 93 known asBloody Alley because of all the accidents that happen there. 

My fantasies of agalactic highway system were tempered by my having watched the Mexican vampiregunslinger movie El Pueblo Fantasma before Emily got off work. 

She alsobrought some of her mom’s ashes, after all, we were carrying on the traditionof the Maggie Devenport Annual Road Trip. Em also brought an audiobook ofStephen Fry reading ghost stories, to set a spooky mood as we glided throughthe interstellar blackness of the dark desert void.

My writer’s brain noted that a vampire making this drive would bea good beginning for a vampire story. It would need more, though. Stuff to keepit from being a cornball, here’s-the-vampire-folks thing. Too bad that JamesDean didn’t live to star in an R-rated, Seventies, “Vampire Run to Vegas.” Ormaybe in the story, he became a vampire, who now drives these roads at night .. .

At one point a pair of headlights came straight at us . . .

 

We gassed up at Kingman. $3.95 a gallon. The Petro station wasfestooned in Halloween decorations. The gritty realities of 2023 C.E. wereeffectively blacked out. Dime store demons were welcome companions.

After a while, Vegas materialized as an ocean of urban lights,triggering my visions of a galactic civilization.

Spent the night in Mike’s Henderson (just out of L.V.) house,parked our Elantra, transferred our stuff–including Emily’s mom–to his Prius, andhad no trouble getting to sleep even if a neighbor’s air conditioner played amechaniod concerto just out our window.

Next morning we whizzed past Las Vegas. The illusions of aglittering, mulitcolored, neon Oz on the edge of decadent galaxy gave way tothe sun-blasted, post-Apocalypitic deserts of Planet Nevada, its own world ofgambler’s utopia, legal prostitution, atomic testing, Area 51 . . . Hunter S.Thompson was right, this is the American Dream . . . Ha . . . Ha . . . Ha . . .

Henderson, and other Nevada towns, are Mars colony-esque. As mostof the arid Southwest–Aztlán, dammit!--is. This region is a dress rehearsal forwhat Terrestrial Civilization (if you haven’t noticed, WesternCivilization is an obsolete concept) plans to do to the Red Planet. It’ll belike Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles, only a lot more bizarre . ..

Somehow, I managed to get to California without taking any PlanetNevada photos. The westward journey mellowed into a different kind ofweirdness. Then when it gets to California, the state of my birth, it becomesfamiliar territory, but then we were north of the SoCal of my youth, stillanother flavor of strange.

This popped into focus in Wasco, at the Jolly Kone Drive-In, now apostmodern archaeological ruin, boarded up with its wind and ultravioletradiation-eaten sign, and a mural blending into graffiti in the back. What I’vebeen talking, and writing, about. It could have been part of one of my Marsstories.

Then, in trying to find our way through farm country, a friendlyhighway worker pointed us to the James Dean gas station. It’s a local touristspot, the last stop Dean made before he drove off to have his fatalaccident. 

It was selling gas for $6.35 a gallon. There was also a giganticstore/tourist trap with all kinds of stuff for sale, and photo ops that weren’tnecessarily on subject. 

Dean probably would have made a great vampire in his old age. Nowone of the cutouts of him stands by the gas pumps, with bird shit dripping downhis face.

THERE ARE TWO ‘R’S IN GUERRILLA

 

Things were looking good, Guerrilla Mural of a Siren’s Song was up and selling on Amazon, I was busy making noise about it on Facebook and Twitter, when Will Bayer, a friend from my old neighborhood in West Covina, pointed out that the cover was missing one of the Rs in guerrilla. Awk!

I took a few deep breaths, and a line from Alejandro Jodorowsky’s El Topo popped into my head: “Too much perfection is a mistake.” One of the wisest sentences uttered in any movie.

 

Ever see a happy perfectionist? Didn’t last long, did it?

So I shot an email to my publisher, and she got on it. Thank Quetzalcoatl for computerized publishing! The problem was soon fixed.

In the meantime, I repeated on the social media that the early print-on-demand copies with the goof were destined to become valuable collector’s items.

I even started an Instagram account.

If you ask me, it looks like another case of Tezcatlipoca reminded me not to act like somekinda chingón.

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